Nuošalė / Offside

The installation “Offside” (2024) was presented for the first time during the Paris Olympic Games 2024 in France (in Clermont-Ferrand) at the “Salle Gilbert-Gaillard” gallery. Sports are often presented as an apolitical field, but is apoliticality really possible in such international sporting events as the Olympics?
The installation is created from two objects:
A large-format carpet on display in the football goal, created from disassembled shoe segments (donated by people specifically for the projects). The carpet was created in 2022 in solidarity with the war victims in Ukraine, implemented together with the members of the “Atelier Autour du costume” community (center for unemployed people in Clermont-Ferrand, France).
And also the metal “ball” constructed from rusted metal sheets – which can be found in cities and fields ravaged by war conflicts. As a kind of sign of hope for the peaceful future and the end of all troubles – an embroidered motif of living nature – a butterfly – landed on the edge of the metal object.